Barack's Small Donor Deception

One of the big misrepresentations Barack his using to spin his fund raising hustle into something noble is to argue that he's created his own small donor network, so who needs the broken public system.

The public system is based on an allocation of $3 from tax payers who check a box on their tax return. This option doesn't increase the amount of taxes paid by the taxpayer, so the money is effectively coming from general funds, not from the individual checking the box.

Congress set up the checkoff in the early 1970's as an alternative way of funding Presidential elec tions. Candidates that choose to accept public funds can reduce their dependence on large contributions from individuals and groups. In the general election, the public funding system places the two major-party nominees on an equal financial footing in the campaign.

On the one hand, we have a system that diverts $3 from individual taxpayers that doesn't cost them anything, and on the other hand we have Barack's historic fundraising machine.

According to the Campaign Finance Institute, nearly early half of the $263 million the Obama campaign raised as of April came in donations of $200 or less.

That's right - half of Barack's donors have given over $200, and a third have given more than $1000! This is a whole different story from a decision to redirect $3 on your tax return. Consider the analysis from Jay Mandle in the Washington Post.

Despite the importance of small donors, both Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain are still taking lots of big donations from wealthy special interests. In fact, when the nominating system as a whole is studied over time, the evidence suggests that the role of big donors will turn out to be growing, not shrinking.

Using percentages to weigh the role of these donors is deceptive. Because Barack has collected money from nearly three times as many small donors as McCain, his over $1000 donors could be identical in number to McCain's, but appear smaller by percentage.

On the GOP side, small donors were much more important for McCain in 2007 than they were for George W. Bush in 2003.

Let's take a look at some bundled contributions. Barack's largest corporate friend is Goldman Sachs, whose employees have given $571,330. McCain's number one is Merrill Lynch, where he's collected $230,310, less than half as much. McCain could very well make the argument that he's less beholden to corporate America.

Do you think this pattern continues? Barack's top five bundled donors gave $2,093,633 as of the end of May, while McCain has raised $949,579 from his top fatcats - less than half as much as Barack. So which candidate is more beholden to corporate America?

Small-dollar donations to Obama have surged this year, and those donors became crucial in the spring as the battle to secure the Democratic nomination intensified. But for most of his campaign, big donors have been Obama's mainstay.

Through March, small donations amounted to 39 percent of the combined fundraising of Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton. But over a comparable period four years ago, such contributions made up an even greater share (42 percent) of the fundraising of the two leading Democratic contenders, Sen. John Kerry and former Vermont governor Howard Dean.

The only argument that Barack can rightly make is that he will be less influenced by his special interests because he's collected so much more money from so many more people, that it's harder for him to keep track of who he owes.

Contributions of less than $200 do not have to be itemized in reports to the Federal Election Commission, so we have no idea how many are made. We also cannot rely on the candidates' rhetoric to match the facts. During a Feb. 26 debate in Cleveland, for example, Obama said that "we have now raised 90 percent of our donations from small donors, $25, $50." His campaign's own data from January 2007 through January 2008 show that 36 percent of donated funds were from small donors.

McCain has received a third of his donations from people giving less than $200, a pretty substantial portion, even while less than Barack's half. Considering, though, that Barack is supposedly running the people's race, not a huge difference.